A look at DAB in the UK

Intempo TRS-01

Details: At less than 4cm thick, the Intempo TRS DAB digital radio is both sleek and stylish. It's also both mains and battery powered, with a 3.5mm headphone jack, so you can enjoy one of the 10 pre-set DAB stations all to yourself. And weighing just 40g, this Intempo digital radio is great to take anywhere.

Available for £39.95 from John Lewis
Available for £39.99 from Amazon
Available for £39.99 from Currys.

Roberts Gemini 26 DAB Clock Radio

Details: 4 Alarms, 10 station presets, sleep/snooze, 16 x2 line display. See our review on Gemini 26 page

Available for around £70 from Currys , Comet , Empire Direct or HiFiBitz

Revo Pico and Pico+

The Pico and Pico+ from UK firm Revo feature DAB, FM and an iPod speaker system. Powered either via the mains or by the built-in rechargeable battery. The Pico+ supports DAB recording and rewind/pause. More details on our Revo page

Available direct from Revo, or from John Lewis. 10% off Revo Radios if you use the code affrevo at AdvancedMP3players while stocks last!.

Goodmans GDB5 - Combined digital TV and digital radio

This is a combined DAB and Freeview digital set-top-box. Has a 5 event timer and scrolling display for radio text. Released in May 2004.

Available for between £70 and £80 from Amazon and Argos
For more, see our Goodmans Freeview page

oono MiniDAB One with MP3

Small handheld DAB radio, that also has FM radio, MP3 playback, and recording capabilities. One-touch DAB recording onto SD card, also supports times recordings.
Built-in speaker, rechargeable battery, supports direct recording in MP3 format. It also has a stereo line-in socket (which can also accept a mic)

More on our oono MiniDAB page

Pure Digital PocketDAB 1000/ HRX1000

The first pocket-sized battery DAB radio from Pure. Powered by 3 x AA batteries, or supplied mains adapter. Preset EQ. Headphone lead doubles as DAB aerial.

Available for upwards of £100 from Empire Direct and Argos

There's quite a range of DAB radios out there. If you're looking to buy a DAB radio, here are a few things to look for:

• Type: You need to think about where you want to use the radio - do you want a clock radio, table-top, in-car, hi-fi , portable radio or handheld?
• Features: Most DAB radios have the basic features: A digital display to show channel and radiotext, plus presets to store your favourite stations. You may want some extras though -
• Connectivity: Are you likely to want to record DAB? Some DAB radios are capable of recording shows onto MP3 - could this be something you want? Perhaps you want to hook up to a Hi-fi, or into your PC - check whether the radio has line-level audio outputs if this is something you expect to want to do
• Power: Some portable or table-top radios run off mains-only. You may want to consider a radio that can run off batteries too, if you're planning to listen around the house
• Signal: If you're looking for a hi-fi option - you may want to consider something with an external aerial socket, especially if you're not in a strong signal area . Also note that handheld personal DAB radios are likely to have less effective aerials than tabletop and Hi-fi DAB radios

Hopefully that offers some guidance - now take a look at our DAB Radios page to see what's out there

First, determine if you're in an area that should be able to receive DAB (see above). Note that the coverage predictor can only guess at likely coverage based on your postcode - if you live in a basement, or a very built-up area, you may struggle to get reception, especially if you're any distance away from the transmitter. Note that DAB signals are generally a little weaker than FM signals, so if you're in an area where you can't get FM - you have no chance with DAB.

If you're not lucky enough to be in a strong signal area, you may find that you may not be able to receive all of the channels, or you may get interference. Interference on DAB is different to the type of interference you'll notice on FM radio. Instead of hiss and crackle, the symptoms are digital breakup (like when your mobile phone starts to cut out), or a sort of warbling, sometimes likened to being underwater.

For information on ways to improve your digital radio reception, take a look at the BBC Reception site. Other tips for improving reception include: using a good external aerial, keeping your radio away from electrical interference (such as a TV, computer, etc), and for internal radios, keeping them near a window, or with the aerial pointing the direction of the transmitter, as high up, and with as few walls in the way as possible.

Still no luck? Perhaps try taking the radio to another location (friends house?) to try reception in a few other areas. For help handling problems where there's no reception, see below

If there's no DAB reception in your area, you can still get a wide choice of digital radio services either via Sky TV, or on Freeview. With Freeview receivers at under £30, you can get access to all of the BBC's national digital radio channels, plus a large selection of commercial stations too, all through your TV for a lot less than a DAB set. Most boxes have hi-fi audio out, and of course, some extra free TV channels too!

Another option, of course, is Internet radio

If you're looking for ways of recording DAB, here are a some options:

• One option is to use your PC to record DAB, using a PC card DAB receiver)
  
  
• You could consider hooking up your DAB radio to your hi-fi, a tape recorder, or to your PC. For more on recording onto PC, see our On Your PC page.
  
  
• Alternatively, consider buying a DAB radio that has the ability to record, pause or rewind live radio (much as a Sky+ box or a Freeview PVR does with TV).
  
  Examples of suitable DAB recorders: the Bug , the Revo Pico+, some of the Roberts Gemini range, the iAudio D2 pocket DAB, and the PocketDAB 2000 handheld. Some of the DAB products from Pure support ReVu (record/rewind), including the Pure DMX-50 midi system.
  
  

One of the slightly annoying things you may notice about digital radio and TV, is that there's a slight time delay in the digital transmissions - sometimes up to a couple of seconds. This can be a pain if you are listening to a digital service with an analogue service in another room,or you're using the BBC pips to set your watch.

The delay is due to the way channels are combined together (multiplexed) and compressed - it's one of the limitations of having a system that can squeeze loads of channels onto a single frequency. Your digital radio is receiving the encoded and compressed signals and using an onboard microprocessor to decode the incoming data and convert to audio - something that doesn't happen with standard analogue TV.

DAB is encoded using a system called MUSICAM before it is transmitted, and your radio decodes this for playback - this encoding / decoding sequence takes an amount of time. If you're technically-minded, the detailed answer is that the time interleaver introduces a 384 microsecond delay and the audio coder/decoder introduces a delay of several tens of milliseconds. You can read more in a PDF found here

We've been asked how to get a broken DAB radio repaired. Here are some options:

• If it's less than one year old, contact the place that you purchased the DAB radio from - you should be able to get it repaired or replaced under the warranty.
• If it's over one year old, it's best to contact the Customer Services department of the radio's manufacturer. The phone number can normally be found at the back of the radio's manual, failing that, a Google search or a call to the firm's Head Office will normally get you in touch with Customer Services
• If you get no luck, you could see if the original place of purchase can help with repairs.
• As repairs outside of warranty can be expensive, it may be worth considering simply buying a new radio. See our DAB Receivers page for some options
• As a last resort, try ringing around a few local repairs firms from your Yellow Pages